Astros right-hander Lance McCullers Jr. began playing catch yesterday, and threw 30 times per reporters including the Houston Chronicle’s Chandler Rome. In addition, Rome also notes that slugger Yordan Alvarez hit soft toss today as he builds toward game action after being delayed this spring by hand soreness.
These positive health updates are excellent news for the Astros. Alvarez is among the very best hitters in all of baseball, and any time missed by the slugger would surely be a massive blow to the Astros offense as they attempt to win a second straight World Series following their 2022 championship run. McCullers, meanwhile, is expected to begin the season on the injured list, but a swift return to action would be a major boon for Houston, which lacks much starting depth beyond unproven prospects and Brandon Bielak, who is currently slated for a long relief role in the big league bullpen.
More from around the American League…
- Yankees manager Aaron Boone told reporters, including MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch, that first baseman Anthony Rizzo is dealing with a “cranky” back, though Rizzo is expected to return to game action Tuesday. Rizzo, who will play this season at age 33, has battled back injuries throughout his career and has had to sit more frequently in recent years to manage the ailment. He underwent an epidural last September due to the lingering issue, though it appears that procedure has not completely solved his struggles. Despite his occasional injury woes, Rizzo has been among the most consistent bats in the league for over a decade now, posting above average marks by measure of wRC+ in eleven straight seasons while playing at least 80% of his club’s games since the beginning of the 2013 season.
- Justin Turner was among the bigger acquisitions for the Red Sox this offseason, and the veteran seems to be progressing well after getting hit in the face with a pitch last week. Turner told reporters, including MLB.com’s Ian Browne, that he had his stitches removed today and is set to return to baseball activities ahead of the schedule provided by manager Alex Cora this past Wednesday. Turner, 38, is expected to primarily play DH for the Red Sox when he returns to action, which Turner expects to be as soon as Opening Day. The longtime Dodgers was a late bloomer, having his breakout season at age 29 in Los Angeles, but since then has been a stable bat with a well above average OPS of .866 in 1,075 games since the start of the 2014 season.
Wow!
Glad to see turner back.
I’m a Yankees fan and I hate to say it but that Rizzo contract will be a regretful one. Didn’t like it from the start.
@retiredadv
‘That Rizzo contract’, is one of the least that you should worry about. You probably will regret the Rodon, Montas, Stanton and a few others, a whole lot more.
I wasn’t trying to get into every single contract just the Rizzo contract specifically.
Luckily for the Yankees Montas is a free agent after this season
Anthony Rizzo is a unique way to spell “Aaron Hicks”
Craven – Horrendous comparison, Aaron’s talent level and productivity is nowhere close to that of Rizzo.
Fever pitch – My point is that the Hicks contract from the get go was actually a bad contract unlike Rizzo’s short term deal. Read the initial comment. Thanks.
Wise move to get AR for 2 yrs. He and Judge are tight. A precursor move, IMO, to get AJ to stay. There were bigger deals out there. Yes? If Anthony can be even somewhat productive with the back thing, it’s a solid investment. $40 mil guaranteed, at a glance, seemed steep but maybe that just meant Houston was serious about stealing him?
Bro short porch tho
Glad to see wow guy back
Pool – Nobody gets grounded forever.
Bielak is the worst pitcher I have ever watched outside of Odorizzi. Pretty bad news if that guy makes the Astros roster.
And the worst second baseman is Odor, isn’t he?
Nothing wrong with Bielak. He’s a perfectly replacement level AAAA pitcher.
Anthony Rizzo: “Man, my back is barking. Hope I don’t end up on the IL.”
Giancarlo Stanton: “Hold my beer…”
I’m waiting for the MLBTR headline “AL-Notes, Entire Yankee Roster”
Guys should be working on the farm and doing hard labour in the off-season, not laying around on sofas and binge watching Netflix shows.
Old York…. Just for fun… could you imagine what Teddy W/ Joe D and say Bob feller would’ve command today in $… veterans let alone side jobs!!!
Ty Cobb and Joe Jackson and Babe Ruth!
Todays players wouldn’t last one at bat against Ryan, Carlton and Seaver or Gibson.
Man what a foursome Jake!!!
Kidding right? Ryan broke the 100mph in the 70s and it was huge news. Now 40 or 50 throw faster than that. Todays hitters would wreck the old-timers due to their conditioning, training and other elements. And in 50 years, those players would wreck todays players. For proof watch any AB of Babe Ruth, that beer belly and tiny legs would be a joke today, and he’s considered the “greatest” of the old-time era.
Its the evolution of sports.
How many times do we have to say they changed the place they measure pitch speed? Ryan was breaking 100 mph crossing the plate. These guys are hitting 100 as they release. Most of them could never hit 100 mph crossing the plate.
So what your saying is: Any sport where the athletes are not competing against an opponent: running, swimming, weight lifting, jumping, etc. There is specific measurements (speed, weight, etc) that says that the human race is continually advancing athletically. But, nobody in the past 45 years can throw as fast as Nolan Ryan.
Okay, sure.
Smith… And ya know what all that “conditioning” has got them? Numerous trips to the IL for ‘forearm strains’ and ‘sore obliques’. Wake up. Do you think Bob Gibson or Denny McClain or Ferguson Jenkins ever missed a start because of any of that? They woulda got laughed out of the locker room. They played through it and are all in the Hall. If any of these guys get in the hall, they’ll be grading on a scale.
There are 146 pitchers whove had more than 50 starts in a season. And none of them are the pitchers youve named. By your own logic, they all must be better/tougher (whatever your point) than Gibson and the others.
What does that have to do with the subject of the thread, the quote I was responding to:
“Todays players wouldn’t last one at bat against Ryan, Carlton and Seaver or Gibson.”
And I say theyd do just fine, probably better than if they faced Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer, Felix Hernandez in their prime.
@rsmith
You have to keep things in perspective. Ryan was throwing 10 mph faster than the average pitcher while throwing 300 inning seasons. Ruth, in 1921, hit more HRs by himself than any other TEAM hit. If their careers were happening today, think of how much better they would be with the training and statistical info they would have. That they were so much more than their peers, based on raw talent alone, is the reason both are among Baseball’s all time greats.
No one said anything like that. I’ll thank you to not put words in my mouth. I will say there’s approximately a 4 mph difference between measuring the pitch speed as it leaves the hand and measuring it when it crosses the plate. So unless the pitcher is throwing 104 mph, they aren’t throwing as fast as Nolan Ryan was throwing. Only a hand full of pitchers have ever thrown that hard. Androlis Chapman is one. His 105.1 mph pitch is likely faster than Ryan threw. Given the difference in the measurments, it’s hard to tell. This is basic science you can research. They did change the measurment for pitch speed which resulted in a huge increase in the number of 100 mph pitches. It’s caused almost as much confusion as when the auto industry started measuring horse power at the wheels instead of at the flywheeil in the 70s.
Sure, if you want to say: No, those players arent as good as todays players, but with the better training, nutrition, etc of todays player . . . I would completely agree with that. But thats changing the “perspective” of the conversation.
The original post was “Todays players wouldn’t last one at bat against Ryan, Carlton and Seaver or Gibson.”
Theres no mention of moving generations around and changing their training. Now its just a speculation game, I saw somewhere, the average player in 1930 was something like 5’6″ and weighted 150lbs. Are we changing that too?
Cards:
1) Pitches today are measured 50 feet from homeplate, not when it leaves the hand.
2) “100 mph pitches Nolan Ryan threw in 1974 (as measured by Rockwell laser/radar instruments relatively close to the plate).”
How accurate could that thing have been? Since we’re now nitpicking science, It was 1974, standard radar guns wouldn’t be introduced for another 5 years.
That’s old information. Pitch speed is now measured as it leaves the hand.
baseballamerica.com/stories/the-measure-of-a-fastb…
Try again!
Today’s pitchers can’t last five innings while Ryan tossed how many No-No’s?
Today’s players have to look to Japan to find two-way players because most players from this part of the World can’t stay on the field!
Also, Ryan’s record for Strikeouts will never be passed in my lifetime!
Heck, Ryan pitched into the 1990’s so he was pitching still better than kids half his age at the time!
No one is saying that they can’t throw as fast but that can’t pitch nine innings and throw as many No-No’s as Ryan did!
Ryan pitched how many No-No’s, shoutouts, and innings, and how many seasons did he have over three hundred strikeouts when people walked more back then than they do today?
Get real!
Next, you will claim you can pitch better than Ryan did!
Ryan was an outlier to the outliers. At his prime, he was estimated to throw 108 MPH. Sure, pitchers get more injured now, but what percentage of players in the 40s, 50s, and 60s were injured and played through it and were less effective because of it, and how many career ending injuries were there because there wasn’t easy ways to identify injuries?
The first live human to undergo and MRI was in 1977 and the machines didn’t become commercially available until the 80s. Anymore, a guy strains a muscle and the team sends him for an MRI. A lot come back negative or with minor results, but the only reason there are so many injuries today is because they’re much easier to diagnose.
You are correct about the 108 mph for Ryan by today’s measurements. I didn’t want to overstate it. Yes, some of those old guys would have been so much better with modern medicine, nutrition, training, and the video analysis now available. Comparing them across eras is pointless. You can only compare them to their peers. That’s why I like OPS+ and ERA+ as the only way to compare players of different eras.
I love the good old days, especially the 1970’s, as much as anyone. I love Babe Ruth, too. But there is no way you can argue that the players from 50 or 100 years ago are as good and athletically gifted as today’s players. Rsmith is right.
Babe Ruth was playing in a segregated league against players who were much smaller and slower than those today. He faced pitchers who were throwing much slower pitches than you see now, and pitches like the slider hadn’t even been discovered yet. Hitters today would definitely be able to hit the great ’70s pitchers I grew up watching. And I believe that if Gerritt Cole and Corbin Burnes could be transported back to that time, their numbers would look even better than they do now.
A few things to consider about that.
1) There were only 16 teams in those days.
2) All the best athletes went into baseball at that time because it was the only game that paid enough to live on. It’s now the third or fourth choice in this country. That’s why we import so many players.
It’s not a one-for-one comparison, but Jesse Owens’ best 100m time was 10.2 seconds. There are currently six college kids who are at least matching that. Not pros, college level, according to NCAA’s leaderboard. Athletes now are simply better.
What would Jessie Owens do with modern training, shoes, nutrition, and medicine?
Lou Brock was a good player.
He made 196 errors during his career as an OFer. He doesnt get near the outfield in 2023.
Cards:
Now youre making the excuse they need modern . . . , which turns it into a nothing debate.
Were the old time players better or not? Because thats how the debate began.
Now you’re just flailing rsmith. You now realize that Nolan Ryan was one of the hardest throwers of all time. So you want to start denigrating Lou Brock instead? Just surrender and keep some dignity.
@Rondon, McClain is not in the HOF.
@CardsFan a few other things to consider, the population of the US alone was less than half it’s current size. The game was segregated. The game was not drawing talent internationally. And scoutings reach was a fraction of what it is today. Statistically speaking the talent pool today’s game is drawing from is exponentially larger.
Hammerin – This is precisely why all the simulations don’t work. Do I believe Ruth could have hit someone like deGrom if he grew up in this era? Yes. Is there any way to prove it? No.
I played in the 70s and 80s and coaches at that time played in the 50s and 60s and there were no specialty shops producing anything other than designer steroids back in the 70s and 80s. There were no bands to improve your arm strength there was just long toss. During that era a kid got up on a Saturday morning and played 8 hours of baseball at the local park with time out for lunch and pool break. There were no distractions like Playstation. I threw 176 pitches in a game at age 13 and nobody counted them except the other manager because he had shared a tell with his team that my catcher had so it was like playing the 2017 Astros. I pitched another complete game 4 days later without any issues. It was a different time. Many players had what people called rubber arms from playing all day throughout their youth. So while you are piling up all the better nutrition, exercise and live action simulation machines to argue that today’s hitters and pitchers are better, remember, teams played on rough real infields or lightning fast astro turf. Today’s players don’t get those types of hops and when they do it’s an automatic hit. In the old days, that bad hop was often called an error. Heck Devers can have a ball hit off his glove without moving a step and the score keeper gives him no error. If Devers played in any era other than now he’d have no less than 50 errors a year based on his inability to field on the greatest manicured fields in history. You can’t compare errors from different eras any more than you can compare skills from different eras.
Most importantly, you can’t forget the juice in the baseball. In 1927, that slow fun loving guy named Ruth hit 60 HRs with a ball 5 times less juiced than the one Judge hit last year. Sure, times were different so all you can do is compare people to the norm of the era and NOBODY was like Ruth just like NOBODY is like Ohtani. It doesn’t matter if pitchers with completely different life experiences than yesterdays pitchers appear to be better because they are who you get to see today, the fact is exceptional stands the test of time.
Guys like Smokey Joe Wood and Christy Mathewson, Koufax and Gibson, Pedro and Clemens and Scherzer and Verlander or deGrom and Cole. They all were exceptional developing during the era that they pitched. There is no effective way to compare these players. You can’t simulate the fields, the mounds, the juice in the ball, the composition of the bats, the effectiveness of the substances and the nicking of the baseballs that pitchers did over time..
Transporting players back in time and having them live under the conditions of the time from birth through their baseball careers would likely show the exact same guys would have been great in whatever era they were placed in.
I never said Nolan Ryan wasnt one of the hardest throwers, as you said before “Dont put words in my mouth”. Wow, the irony.
He was a hard thrower but he was an exception, now there are tons of hard throwers. Even you admitted Chapman threw faster. So what are you talking about? Who you got besides Ryan – NOBODY. Also, even you admitted
And Lou Brock’s 196 errors in a career is a ridiculous amount for an outfielder. It wouldnt be tolerated in modern baseball. Go back to the stone age.
Im trying to talk about eras vs eras, you want to JUST talk about Ryan.
Tigers: Those are reason swhy todays players are better than before. Youre only making my point stronger.
Bloom:
The topic was never “if he grew up in this era”. Thats just an excuse proving my point.
Players in todays game are much better than players in the past, and players in the future will be better than todays. Maybe Cy Young develops arm trouble when he’s young and spends his career mostly on the IR. We dont have time machines, what youre proposing is irrelevant and impossible to prove either way.
@Rsmith, I agree that today’s players are better. That was the point of my comment.
In the 50s and 60s, even star players needed off season jobs to make ends meet. The talent pool was much deeper then too. The best athletes in America, white, black, or brown, chose baseball as their primary sport. Jackie Robinson would have been an outstanding halfback but the NFL was a backwater league at the time.
Marin – Young people can’t appreciate the differences in the world between the 60s and 2020s. I played in the 70s and stopped because I needed to make a living and back then the minors were for foreign players and rich guys. The pay was so bad that if you weren’t used to poverty then you went in another direction to have a career. If you were wealthy, your poor earnings were subsidized by your family wealth. The top salary during the year I could have been drafted was $100K. I went to school instead and then grad school since it still paid more than baseball as a career. Back then scouts asked you your plans and if college was the first thing out of your mouth, they moved to the next guy.
About 5 years later things changed and the money went up enough that my choices would have been different had I been born 5 to 10 years later. That’s just the way it was. Baseball was a way of life as a kid but making a living at baseball was for the 1% ers in baseball. Guys who were shoe-ins for the majors. One of the players I coached nearly 30 years ago has made over $6MM in baseball and is a marginal talent like I was. It now pays to take a shot that didn’t make sense 50 years ago.
Players aren’t improving as rsmith suggests, they are simply provided more ways to improve their physiques. Players are no smarter than they were back in the old days, in fact, based on talking to people who have played recently I’d say lots of baseball knowledge has been replaced with modern day fallacies. The fact that shifts impacted the game is a great example. 50 years ago, the hitters would have been criticized for being bad at their jobs since they weren’t smart enough to not pull the ball to the shifted player.
Pitchers do throw harder today as can be witnessed by the number of TJ surgeries per year. Body parts are not designed for some of the stress being put on them in modern baseball.
Overall, would I take Ted Williams over any hitter today no matter what era? Absolutely. Hand/eye coordination is the single greatest skill a hitter can have. William’s hand/eye coordination was more than remarkable. Have we seen that in any player since Tony Gwynn and Ichiro? NOBODY playing today as shown that type of skill but yes they can hit the ball at greater velocity and with new launch angles, if they actually make contract!.
Does that suggest things are going in the wrong direction? Yep. The ball is the most juiced in history and yet the HR numbers are not growing like they did in the 50s and the 90s or even the 1920s when the live ball era started. Current players simply don’t have the skill sets of the players of yesteryear. The number of players in the game have expanded faster than the skill sets. Today’s game is a watered down version of the old days.
Now that we see gambling in the game you’ll also have to be aware of upsets that might not have happened in the past. There are still powerful people behind gambling and just because they aren’t called something notorious like “the mafia” or “organized crime” doesn’t mean that they don’t have a say in who wins games. The Astros are a perfect example. How hard was it to place bets on the Astros in 2017 when you knew they had an edge? Is anyone naive enough to think that some people didn’t make a killing that year knowing the Astros’ situation?
Young people think things are better now only because they have no reference points in the past. Age gives you the wisdom to see change and recognize it’s just a different day, with different things happening but the game is still played with the best players of the era and occasionally an exception comes along like Ruth, Williams, Mays, Bonds, Pujols, Miggy or Trout. Intelligent baseball fans appreciate the players and don’t try to solve the impossible hypothetical of who is or was better.. They just enjoy the game.
@Marlin, the population of US was half of current population, no international players, scoutings reach was nowhere near as vast. Statistically speaking the talent pool is exponentially deeper today, sorry that’s just how math works.
I remember a few years ago when watching a Phillies game. Mike Schmidt was doing commentary on the Sunday afternoon game. He mentioned how much trouble he’d have against today’s pitchers. He said only a few hit triple digits. Now there’s several per team. And pretty much no reliever throws below 96 mph nowadays. Then there’s a lot more movement on the ball in today’s game. This is widely considered the greatest third baseman to play the game saying this
It’s not that today’s pitchers can’t, it’s that teams manage their innings a lot closer. Teams believe this cuts down on wear and tear. Whether this does prevent injuries really hasn’t been proven. Pitchers still seem to get injured at about the same rate. Another reason is every team carries at least eight bullpen pitchers. These aren’t your dad’s bullpen pitchers either. They all throw at least 97 with movement. Several throw triple digits. They all have four pitches. They all throw mostly strikes.
Tiger, there were about half the number of teams to draw from the talent pool during the 50s. Population has doubled since then but so has the number of teams. And the talent pool included the cream of the Negro League and some Latinos like Garcia and Aparicio. I believe a much higher percentage of kids played the game back then than now. The best athletes gravitated to baseball because it paid better than the other pro sports. The pay was still pretty bad though. So at worst, yesterday’s pool of talent is equal to today’s in my opinion.
The # of Latinos playing in MLB in the 50s and 60s was a fraction of what it is today. Let alone players coming from Asia and the few other random countries that have produced MLB talent. The average pay of MLB players was still very good back then compared to the avg per capita income. Statistically the talent pool is just far far deeper today. Sorry the math is the math and the talent pool and reach of scouting is just vastly greater.
Pulledabloom, the more people in the world is what is called the talent pool. When u r drawing from a larger pool you get more premium talent. That is the premise of statistics. And mind you today’s talent pool is global, opposed to the days u r waxing nostalgicly about that drew 99% domestically.
Then there is scouting which in times of yore, required a scout to get a tip or stumble upon a player and travel to see said player. Opposed to today with this thing we call the “internet” which has numerous websites devoted to prep talent and other scouting resources. Games and film can b viewed from anywhere and are easily accessible.
Oh and your opinions at the end trying to dismiss fact are Hilarious!! You contradict yourself multiple times, argue against the point your making, and you try and claim Mike Schmidt does not know what he is talking about.
Congratulations, you are stubborn old person driven by nostalgia and trying to prop up yesteryear cus u yearn for a time past when your clock wasn’t nearing zero….
Pulled:
1) There was a ‘cold war’ going on in the 70s. International travel was far less, and countries like Cuba didnt have any players in MLB. Today acquiring a visa in America is far easier and cheaper, therefore more players travel to America to play. Also, The fingers of MLB reach far far deeper into Latin America and Asia, than back then. There are entire scouting crews all over Latin America, in the seventy teams would have maybe a guy or two.
3) WTF? Middle class Americas in the ’70s, would ignore fame and riches of the most popular sport in America, to work at a middle class job in an an office or factory. Whats that account for, 1 person out of a 100,000?
4) The average MLB player DEFINITELY gets paid more than the average NFL player, look it up. Its largely based on roster size. Its easy to pay 12 basketball players more than 26 baseball players, and its even easier to pay 26 baseball players more than 48 nfl players.
Wow, you are both condescending and not too bright.
Rizzo’s cranky back out there calling talkback radio to complain about “young ‘uns with their tiktoks” and shouting at kids to get off its lawn…:P
I’llq
Kidding, right? Modern guys can’t stay on the field for a whole season. Sure, some can throw 100+ but can’t last a full season.
Rizzo is gonna have a monster year. Watch..not MVP or anything but it will be one of his best. As for Turner I sure hope this doesn’t hurt him psychologically like it has some guys. Some guys never recover from getting hit like that.
no one in mlb lost more hits to the shift than rizzo if he stays healthy should have a strong year
dasit – Was that a compliment or insult to Rizzo? You are basically saying that Rizzo didn’t have the smarts or the ability to hit the ball where the players aren’t. He only hits the ball to certain spots and now those spots won’t have a player there?
Rizzo hasn’t really hit well for average since 2019 and that’s mostly due to health. The Yankees don’t have the best reputation for staying healthy so 2023 is a crap shoot for Rizzo. If you play half the games, the impact of the no shifting is half as much!!
Are cucumbers basically just water?
You can start a sentence with the word “meanwhile,” it is allowed. And it helps sentences flow better.
I knew it was bad when they had to give Rizzo an epidural late last season. It just covers the pain rather than the root cause.
smith, go easy on the condescension accusation. Bloom and I come from an era when teams had Class D minor leagues. Many players had to grind through several leagues first just to get to Class A league ball. The pyramid had a much broader base and only the most talented and/or determined players got to the big league. Maury Wills spent nearly a decade in the minors before he got a chance. Even Mickey Mantle had to start in Class D as I recall. This hints at the depth of talent available during the 50s when few people cared about pro football and basketball.
Interesting. When Turner got hit, there were 205 posts. The thread when there is some likelihood of him being available for OD, 71 posts.